The news that Carrie Underwood had agreed to perform “America the Beautiful” at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration was a shock to some of the country music star’s fans — her LGBTQ+ fans in particular, who’d previously seen the superstar as a rare ally in the notoriously conservative genre. “I am humbled to answer the call at a time when we must all come together in the spirit of unity and looking to the future,” Underwood said in a statement.
True, country music has never exactly been a haven for queer fans, but Underwood’s rare allyship in the genre made her decision to support Trump, whose own allies and administration have been historically anti-LGBTQ+, a disappointing move. How can Underwood ask her queer fans to unite with people who have literally called for their eradication?
Despite her recent struggles in country radio, Underwood is easily the most high-profile artist ever booked to perform at a Trump political event.
The future offers little hope for queer people in America facing a barrage of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation from the right and increasingly unregulated hate speech online as tech companies like Meta eliminate fact-checking and content moderation.
Understanding the country star’s not-so-sudden pivot from LGBTQ+ advocate to MAGA supporter makes more sense if you consider Carrie Underwood not as an individual, but as a business. If you take a look both at her public LGBTQ+ advocacy and her embrace of Trump, you’ll see both are driven by the practical necessity of commercial success in country music.
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Underwood launched her career in 2005, just two years after the Chicks were ousted from country music in 2003, and likely felt the pressure to keep any political views to herself lest she experience the same fate. So, the LGBTQ+ community stood up and took notice when she made the case for gay marriage in a 2012 interview with The Independent, saying, “As a married person myself, I don’t know what it’s like to be told I can’t marry somebody I love, and want to marry. I can’t imagine how that must feel. I definitely think we should all have the right to love, and love publicly, the people that we want to love.”
She received some backlash from her fellow evangelical Christians over the comments, but Underwood had popular opinion on her side at the time. Public support for gay marriage in the U.S. was on the rise in 2012 before the Supreme Court legalized it in 2015. Even in country music, a song affirming LGBTQ+ fans — Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow” — won song of the year at the 2014 CMA Awards, despite country radio completely ignoring it. It peaked at No. 43 on the country airplay chart, and Musgraves became the rare woman in country music to build an audience with no support from country radio.
In 2018, Underwood moved from her longtime label Sony Music Nashville to Musgraves’ label, Universal Music Group. That year, she seemed to double down on her LGBTQ+ allyship, releasing the single “Love Wins.” While the song doesn’t explicitly call for LGBTQ+ acceptance, and Underwood never made that connection in interviews, the lyrics make a general plea for love and acceptance in the face of “politics and prejudice,” while using the slogan of the marriage equality movement as the title.
Underwood’s LGBTQ+ fans adopted “Love Wins” as an affirming anthem, but country radio was not on board. After 27 consecutive top-10 singles, “Love Wins” broke Underwood’s streak and stalled out at No. 11.
Underwood later denied her music included any political messages at all, telling The Guardian in 2019, “I feel like more people try to pin me places politically. I try to stay far out of politics if possible, at least in public, because nobody wins.”
Fast-forward to 2021, and any post-Chicks pretense of avoiding political discourse in country music was long gone. The Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol served as a coming-out party for country star Jason Aldean, whose wife, Brittany, emerged as a right-wing influencer, posting her support for the insurrectionists in real time as they stormed the Capitol.
A few months later, Underwood released a duet with Aldean, “If I Didn’t Love You,” securing Underwood’s first No. 1 on the country airplay chart in five years. Apparently, the radio success and industry awards Underwood took home for the song offset any concern she may have had about taking on the Aldeans’ political baggage.
In May 2021, Underwood’s husband, former professional hockey player Mike Fisher, appeared as a guest on former Daily Wire correspondent Candace Owens’ talk show. That August, Underwood liked a video opposing school mask mandates from Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh, who moved to Nashville where the outlet has been headquartered since 2020. As the debate over Covid subsided, far-right influencers like Walsh discovered a new source for outrage against the medical community — physicians providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth. Underwood stayed silent on that matter, but the Aldeans leaned in hard, selling clothing printed with anti-LGBTQ+ messaging as they accepted invitations to spend New Year’s Eve 2022 and 2023 with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
Musically, Aldean translated all that MAGA grievance into the biggest hit of his career with 2023’s “Try That in a Small Town,” which paints a cartoonish picture of the urban-rural divide, with the video depicting civil unrest stemming from the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.
After Country Music Television pulled the video from rotation, the ensuing controversy further cemented Aldean’s status as a marginalized warrior among the MAGA faithful, and the song became his first to top the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart. His success was a clear indication of where the industry was headed.
In the wake of that success, Aldean points to newer country artists Parker McCollum and Cody Johnson as MAGA supporters who are “like-minded people now that aren’t scared to go out and talk about it.”
Despite her recent struggles in country radio, Underwood is easily the most high-profile artist ever booked to perform at a Trump political event.
McCollum and Aldean are both slated to perform at inaugural balls for Trump, and Johnson has also been speaking out on division and politics at his concerts. In one clip, Johnson shares a more fleshed-out view of what unity under Trump will look like, and it pointedly includes no more room for discussion on gender. Yet Republicans have introduced more than 100 anti-trans bills in state legislatures already this year. The House just passed legislation that would ban transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports at schools and institutions receiving federal funds. If the issue is settled for Johnson, he must be pleased to see these bills progress.
Underwood’s current single on country radio is a duet with Johnson, titled “I’m Gonna Love You.” It’s poised to enter the top 10 on the airplay chart very soon, offering Underwood another much-needed boost from a conservative male artist after her last two solo singles stalled at No. 20 and No. 18.
Despite her recent struggles in country radio, Underwood is easily the most high-profile artist ever booked to perform at a Trump political event. That’s a big win for the right. As an eight-time Grammy winner, Underwood has a seal of approval from the creative community. As the face of NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” for a 12th season this year, she is a spokesperson for the NFL; the concert film of her long-running Las Vegas residency, “Reflection,” premieres on Hulu on Jan. 24; and now she is returning as a judge on the show that launched her career, “American Idol,” in March.
Unlike in 2016, there is little risk of Underwood losing her key partnerships as a result of her ties to Trump.
As for Underwood, even if she still believes in marriage equality, it may not be apparent to her that the right’s unrelenting campaign against transgender people directly correlates with its effort to turn back public opinion against gay marriage.
Overturning gay marriage is clearly part of the plan, as evidenced by Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in the 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in which he said the Supreme Court should “reconsider” marriage equality. Just recently, Republicans in Idaho have filed a resolution asking the Supreme Court to overturn its decision to legalize gay marriage so the state can reinstate its ban on same-sex unions.
With all she stands to gain by aligning herself with the MAGA movement, connecting these dots is not likely to make Underwood change course. Whether that association leads to continued commercial success for Underwood, like it has for Aldean, remains to be seen. Despite her long track record of No. 1 hits and millions of albums sold, Carrie Underwood is still a woman in country music fighting for one of those precious few “female slots” on the radio.
Hunter Kelly
